Monday, March 18, 2013

The one face of Matthew McConaughey...

I love how this year was the year
of Matthew McConaughey and people were talking about how he had these four very
divisive films that showed such range from him and he was working with these
great directors like Soderbergh and Friedkin and recent Oscar inductee Lee
Daniels, not to mention cult-favorite Linklater; and he was said to be entering
this new chapter of his career and then I saw all four films and I’m left
scratching my head as to why in the hell people made such a big deal about
McConaughey this year; at all.

I’ve been pretty vocal about not
being a fan of the man. I don’t think he
has a lot of talent, and then again I dedicated my ‘Crimes of Oscar Snubbery’
to him back in 2011 for his role in ‘The Lincoln Lawyer’ because I was
completely blown away by his command of the screen. When people went ape-shit over McConaughey
this year I was skeptical yet intrigued.
Sadly, what I found were four films that proved McConaughey has one face
with slight shades that don’t really do much but confirm his reputation as a
southern charmer.

At least he tried to play it straight this year but:

Determined McConaughey

Sadistic McConaughey

Sexy McConaughey

Haunted McConaughey

I mean, it’s sad that I can
actually see the same character in all of these performances. Like, right after Danny Buck is done lambasting
Bernie before a jury he strips at the local dive bar during ‘Ladies Night’ and
then harasses some trailer trash before getting completely snookered and
butt-raped by some black men in a sleazy hotel.
There is no real character development.
He basically plays himself in all four films despite the complete change of character. YES, these are four very diverse characters, but they are NOT shaded to be different characters, if you know what I mean. Most aggravating for me is the complete brainfart the world had over his
performance in ‘Magic Mike’ this year.
All that commotion made over his ‘departure’ was overwhelming and
actually had me expecting something extraordinary from the actor only to
witness the same ol’ shtick I’ve seen from him a hundred times before. All he does is play up his familiar charisma
coupled with his familiar body. Like,
there is nothing to this character or performance, and even when they try and
insert some notion of evil in that ONE scene where he flips out it comes off as
a sidenote and then he goes back to accentuating his drawl and winking at the
audience. Does this man do anything
else? How he won the NYFCC Award for this is beyond my comprehension.

Maybe it’s his voice that I just
can’t get around. It is so distinct that
no matter what he is doing, he talks and all I see is Matthew McConaughey. He can’t slip in and out of characters as
easily because he carries with him ‘Matthew McConaughey’ wherever he goes.

2 comments:

I get what you mean, and I wasn't that blown away by his work in Magic Mike. I did really enjoy that performance though. I think I prefer his work in The Paperboy over his other performances last year. For me, he and Macy Gray stole that movie.

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